A
beautiful, aristocratic young woman whose life at the peak of Imperial
Russian society leaves her lonely and unfulfilled...a dashing military
man with a noble title and a passionate heart...an affair that begins as
a private infatuation, but soon scandalizes an entire city... Count Leo
Tolstoy's classic romantic novel, Anna Karenina, paints an unforgettable
portrait of two people who lose themselves in the throes of a love so powerful
that it comes to dominate their very existences, changing forever their
friendships, families and futures.

STORY

Anna
first spies the dashing cavalry officer Vronsky at a lavish ball and is
instantly attracted towards him. Her marriage to the older aristocrat Karenin
has given
her respectability, wealth and social position, but it lacks the passion
and love that she also desires. It is no wonder she responds to the advances
of the charming Vronsky, but their subsequent affair
shocks society, and has tragic consequences. Anna is banished from
her social circle and forced to live in splendid rural isolation with her
illicit lover, while the scorned Karenin also bans her from seeing their
young son. Then at tale's end Anna meets her fate under the locomotive's
wheels, the audience feels some tragedy, but with the suspicion that the
train arrived ahead of schedule.
Leo Tolstoy's tale of love and morality follows the doomed romance
between the beautiful, well-born Anna Karenina and Count Alexei Vronsky.
Anna, though a wife andmother, plunges into a tempestuous affair with the
dashing Vronsky, shocking Russian society and rending her family apart.
The progress of
their liaison is contrasted with the romance and
marriage of two of their friends, Levin and Kitty, who seem an unlikely
match at first but find increasing happiness and fulfillment as their relationship
deepens over time. The desperation and despair of one couple and the ever-growing
warmth and devotion of the other trace two separate choices in love and
reveal the consequences of each.
Although the story
of Anna Karenina is not autobiographical, it does deeply reflect
Tolstoy's own beliefs and his desire to impart these beliefs to
others. In many ways, the character of Levin is one with whom Tolstoy identified
closely, and Levin's experiences as he is transformed by his love and marriage
to Kitty were a message to readers of the novel.

LEO
TOLSTOY (1828 - 1910)

Count
Leo Tolstoy (writer) was born to a wealthy
family of landowners in 1828 in Russia's Tula province. He studied Oriental
laguages and law at the University of Kazan and then led a life of pleasure
until 1851, when he fought as a member of an artillery regiment in the
Crimean War. After participating in the defense of Sebastopol, Tolstoy
wrote The Sebastopol Stories, which established his reputation.
He
married in 1862 and had 13 children over the next 15 years. During that
time he managed his vast estates; studied and implemented educational methods
in order to help the local peasant population; and wrote his two greatest
works: War and Peace (1865-68) and Anna Karenina (1874-76).Imperial Russia
was in its heyday during this period, opening new cultural and commercial
doors between Russia and Western Europe, and bringing Tolstoy's master
works to an international audience.
A
Confession, which he wrote from 1879-92, marked a change in his life and
works; he became an extreme rationalist and moralist.
In a series of pamphlets he wrote after 1880, Tolstoy rejected the Church
and State, renounced the demands of the flesh and denounced ownership of
private property. His writing earned him many followers in Russia and abroad,
but also generated strong opposition. In 1901, Tolstoy was excommunicated
by the Russian Orthodox Church.
He
died in 1910 during a journey, at the small
railway station of Astapovo in Russia, seven years before the revolution
that transformed Russian history and politics.

CAST
& STAFF

Writer/director
Bernard Rose is a graduate
of the National Film and Television School at Beaconsfield, England, and
was the winner of a BBC award for young filmmakers as a teenager. His previous
features include "Paperhouse," which took first place at the Avoriaz
Film Festival, "Chicago Joe and the Showgirl," "Candyman" and the
Icon Production "Immortal Beloved," which starred Gary Oldman and Isabella
Rossellini. Rose's television work includes "Body Contact" and "Smart Money"
for the BBC, as well as several popular and critically noted music videos,
including UB40's "Red Red Wine" and Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax"
and "Welcome to the Pleasure Dome."

SOPHIE MARCEAU

The filmmakers immediately recognized the importance
of finding the ideal actors to play the roles that have captured generations
of readers the world over. Director of this film Rose
said:"...so we needed to find an Anna who could communicate a
great deal without a history -- who had a gorgeous, eloquent face and a
mystery about her, aristocratic yet vulnerable. A woman who could drive
a man to a grand, dangerous adoration, but who seemed to live without any
calculation. Mel Gibson had worked with Sophie Marceau on 'Braveheart'
and he suggested that we meet with her." In that time, Sophie had recently
had a baby, and Rose felt that this enhanced her qualification for the
role even more.

Sophie
Marceau had a splendid performance. Besides her ineffable beauty and exquisite
elegance reflected on the screen as Anna is meant to be, it is remarkable
to watch how her facial expressions convey those most subtle emotions Anna
possess, joy, happiness, shame, sorrow and despair. More amazingly, the
sentiments are communicated not only through her tender eyes but also from
those sensational lips. In addition her French accent adds the intoxicating
foreign flavor to the character, which makes you wonder what it would be
like if they all speak French instead (in that period, the Russian aristocrats
often spoke French).

"I don't think you could
cast a childless woman as Anna," Rose says.
"There are too many aspects of the story that deal with her children
and her separation from them; I think only a mother
can really give them resonance. In addition, the fact that
Sophie is French was very helpful, because Russian aristocrats of the day
were frequently educated in Paris and spoke French even after returning
home. In fact, as we show in the film, Russian was primarily spoken by
the nobility only to their servants; to one other, they spoke European
languages, usually French."

And opposit, what Sophie
Marceau said about the Anna Karenina's director: "It is extraordinary
that Tolstoy had this understanding of a woman. And Bernard had this too.
He's very brilliant, a little crazy, but he never obliged me to pretend
for him." And here Sophie comments his way of work: "Bernard never
used me as an object. He was rough at times, but honest. And that's the
best way to get a performance from an actor. It means you can use the bad
as well as the good." Then she adds, with a simplicity that disclose
the genuine poetry of her soul: "He never tried to seduce me with sweet
purpose. I love the way he treated me in the films."

This
role is as written just for Sophie. Her charm, elegance and gentle face
and moves are right so, as Tolstoy has written about Anna Karenina in his
roman. And how Sophie commented the lasting
appeal of Anna Karenina? "The book is a
masterpiece;the fact that people still read, feel and talk about
this book shows what a classic story it is. It owes its longevity to the
fact that it deals with people, people who go farther than anyone else.
Yet it's so close to reality that we can recognize ourselves in all the
characters."

Sophie
is adamant that the social forms may have changed, but the essential dilemma
of the character - that of a married woman who falls in love with another
man - remains the same. Marceau spent three months of the six-month shoot
in St Petersburg and it seems her experiences ware oddly heart-rending.
"I wouldn't say it was a fairytale,"
Sophie says from her Paris apartment. "St Petersburg is a magical city.
But it's very painful to see what's happening in the streets. The
misery and the ruin is everywhere, it's really frightening to a Westerner,
and if you have children, and you see these families on the streets in
very desperate circumstances, it breaks your heart. So I was torn between
the two feelings. The beautiful crazy history of this culture - which is
basically 18th century Europe, and the fact that I hate this place. It's
just not livable for normal people."

About
the preparation for the role of a lifetime,
Marceau was a little mysterious. "Working on a film is about concentration,
16 hours a day," she explains. "It's about not talking too much
about what you are going to do. It's about being in a certain state. Even
if you are just walking in the street, the walk must mean something. That
is the actor's job. The message must be clear in every moment." As
Anna Karenina approaches her fate, Marceau explains the character moves
deeply into herself. "It's very personal. How would you imagine your
own death? But I don't think Anna was even thinking about death. She had
gone so deep into herself, there's no way back. She's a very introverted
person. That is what is going to kill her."

"Sophie Marceau is a cool,
regal beauty -- not the right type at all to play the hot-blooded, passionate
Anna. Marceau is a good actress, but she's wrong for this role, and her
icy rendering of Anna leaves viewers largely unconcerned about the fate
of the character," says renomed critic James Berardinelli .

SEAN BEAN

Sean
Bean was born and raised in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, and initially
followed his father into the family welding business before joining the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. There, he won the Silver Medal for his
graduation performance in "Waiting for Godot" and also received two awards
for fencing. He made his professional acting debut as Tybalt in "Romeo
and Juliet" at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, then played Romeo for the
Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-Upon-Avon. Bean appeared as Lovelace
in the BBC television adaptation of "Clarissa," then achieved widespread
audience notice in the starring role of Lieutenant Sharpe on the BBC series
"Sharpe's Rifles," which is going into its fourth successful season. His
starring performance as Mellors in Ken Russell's "Lady Chatterley's Lover,"
a four-part telefilm, further enhanced his popularity.

Among
Bean's other film credits are "Caravaggio," "Lorna Doone," Mike Figgis'
"Stormy Monday" and "Windprints." His television appearances include "A
Woman's Guide to Adultery," "Fool's Gold," "Inspector Morse," "Prince,"
"Tell Me That You Love Me," "Troubles," "My Kingdom For a Horse" and "War
Requiem." On stage, Bean has performed in "Fair Maid of the West," "A Midsummer
Night's Dream," "Deathwatch" and "Last Days of Mankind."

"Sean is a wonderful,
vital actor with a very masculine energy," says
Rose. "He also -- and this is not a small thing -- looks natural
and appealing in uniform. Not all contemporary actors can carry off the
military carriage and demeanor that a uniform, especially an imperial Russian
uniform, requires. But I had seen Sean in a British television series called
'Sharpe's Rifles,' and I knew he'd be perfect for the part of Vronsky."

Marceau
said about her partner: "There is
no chichi, no rivalry. He's also very much the English gentleman. Not too
warm, not too distant. At night Sean stayed very quiet in his room, watching
football I think. I feel I could invite him for a week to stay with me,
and he wouldn't disturb me at all. He's not always talking about himself."

Alfred
Molina (Constantin Levin) has enjoyed a successful career on stage
and in motion pictures. The English-born actor was recently seen in the
film "Before and After" opposite Liam Neeson and Meryl Streep.

Rose
said: "Fred has a unique ability to look physically big and strong at
the same time he projects the air of being lost and uncertain. I wanted
someone who was on a journey of self-discovery, who learned a lot about
people and who faced his personal demons -- but he had to be a strong and
intelligent person right from the beginning. Fred was exactly the man I
had in mind!"

Molina
about film: "So much of the story is told from Levin's point of view...
we understand Anna and Vronsky and Kitty and all the other characters through
him. What's really interesting is that Tolstoy writes in a very visual
way; he describes people physically, and those characteristics are the
real clues in terms of how you are going to play them......Bernard's adaptation is very pure; there are many occasions when
the characters in the film use the novel's dialogue exactly. And this is
the first time the full content of the book has been explored on film,
so I think it's a very important version of a classic work."

MIA KIRSHNER

Canadian-born Mia
Kirshner (Ekaterina "Kitty" Scherbatsky) has appeared in Denys Arand's
critically acclaimed film "Love and Human Remains" as well as in Atom Egoyan's
"Exotica" and "The Crow -- City of Angels." Kirshner, who was raised in
Toronto, began acting in her teens and has studied literature at McGill
University between performing assignments. Mia Kirshner also appears in
the upcoming "Mad City," with Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta.

Kirshner's
opinion to film: "Since Tolstoy saw himself in Levin's character, he
also saw much of his wife, Sophie, in Kitty's character. Sophie edited
Tolstoy's work and it was almost a love letter to her -- he writes 'there
are two classes of women: all other women and then Kitty, who is in a class
of her own.' So I felt it was important to show what qualities both Tolstoy
and Levin admired in these women. Kitty really had to grow in the course
of the story."

JAMES FOX

James
Fox (Alexi Karenin) has amassed a substantial body of acting work that
includes numerous popular and critically acclaimed motion pictures. He
has recently been seen in "Gulliver's Travels," "Neverever," "Patriot Games"
(in which he appears with Sean Bean), Merchant-Ivory's "The Remains of
the Day" and Nicholas Roeg's "Heart of Darkness."

"James Fox plays Karenin
as a man who is obsessed with the proper and appropriate, no matter what
feelings lie behind the actions. Yet, as the events of the story unfold,
he emerges as a very sympathetic character. That's essential to the story
I wanted to tell." says Rose and adds: "I wanted a handsome man
for this part. He had to be physically attractive, because I didn't want
people to think that Anna has been married to some
kind of ogre. She wasn't; she had simply made the kind of marriage
that most wealthy people of the time made. She had joined her future with
the most successful man who proposed to her, and romantic love had nothing
to do with it. I don't think she even understood how much was missing from
her life until she met Vronsky."

PRODUCTION

"400,000 words cannot be condensed into two
hours."

Writer/director
Bernard Rose says that he is glad to have encountered Anna Karenina for
the first time as an adult. "When you mention this novel, everyone nods
and says, 'Oh, yes, I've read it,' but when you ask them to be more specific,
they admit they were supposed to read it in school, but few really did,"
says Rose. "When I discovered this marvelous story as an adult I could
experience it as something fresh and new; it was riveting."

This
classic story has been filmed many times before, most notably in
the haunting 1935 version featuring Greta Garbo, and the tragic story itself
is familiar.

Many
critics talk about this Anna Karenina version as about needless thirth
version because it is worst than previous.
"Of course, I saw the Garbo version, which has many wonderful moments,
but the story had a central flaw for me," Rose says. "Neither it
nor any other filmed version gave much consideration to Levin and Kitty's
part of the story; there was no parallelism, and much of the meaning
of the whole book was lost."

About
80% critics stated that Rose paints pretty pictures with his camera and
his script is solid enough, but to tell Tolstoy's massive work in
screen shorthand makes a certain disjointedness inevitable.

Visually,
the film is dark and splendid, all clouds
of white steam at frozen railway stations and women in fahabulous gowns
running through the ornate, gilded rooms of palaces in 19th-century Russia.
Costumes are designed by talian costume designer Maurizio
Millenotti, who has been nominated for two Academy Awards, for Franco
Zeffirelli's films "Othello" and "Hamlet." He began his career as an assistant
to famed designers Piero Tosi and Gabriella Pescucci during the 1970s,
and in 1981 became a designer in his own right.

Rose
has actually filmed on location within Russia
itself, bringing a unique touch of authenticity to the production.
The snow swept landscapes, the opulent Czarist palaces, lavish ball
rooms and the old buildings of St Petersburg add to the lavish, stunning
visual surface that captures the magnificent beauty of Russia at the height
of its imperial empire in the late 1880's. The sumptuous visuals are accompanied
by a superb and rousing score featuring the works of Russian
composers like Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovksy and Prokofiev, all beautifully
played by the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under famed conductor
Sir Georg Solti, who previously collaborated with Rose on his last film.

CRITICS

Here
I offer you some opinions from renomed or not renomed critics. Here you
can find positive critics and negative ones, too. Decide, which you will
believe in and whoose critic has the same opinion as you. I think, It is
one of the best roles Sophie played in any case. If film is good or bad,
Sophie's role is good enough purpose to seeing this movie.

This
film doesn't know if it's a love story set in 1800s Russia or a production
and costume designers' show-reel.

Gary Susman

For
me, seeing Anna Karenina was like going on a date
with an incredibly beautiful, though slightly dull, woman. What she had
to say was not as engaging as how she looked. But, still, it's hard for
me to come away displeased with the evening.

Michael J. Doyle

As
for the performances, Sophie Marceau is the movie's
saving grace. Anna Karenina is mostly eye candy, and while her fellow
actors behave as if directed to be part of a tableau, Marceau has a haunting
presence that keeps the film lurking around in the mind much longer than
it deserves to. Say, you could always read the book.

Liz Brown, Toronto Sun

Empty:
Karenina is nice on the edges but has nothing in the middle.

Roger Moore, Journal Arts Reporter

Everything
about the film is lush and beautiful. From
the wonderful photography that enhances every bit of film, to the breathtaking
decor in the ballroom and on the skating rink, to the well-chosen cast,
the film is a winner. Anna has a classically lovely face. Her every
emotion, her passionate love affair with Count Vronsky is revealed
in her eyes.

Winona Kent

This
film deserves to be nominated for Best Cinematography.
The scenes - and not just the scenery - are exquisite.

Han Kuo

If
you haven't read the 800-plus-page novel, this is the movie that will compel
you to do so. And you will be grateful for it afterwards. It is the best
movie adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's timeless tragic love story "Anna Karenina"
thus far. Beware of that reading a novel and watching a movie are never
meant to be the same experience. They are functionally different and a
head-to-head comparison is seldom fair or meaningful. Bear that in mind
and watch this movie for its own sake, you will find yourself immersed
in this beautiful film.

Han Kuo

Another
baffling aspect of this film is its myriad conflicting
accents. Wasn't Leo Tolstoy a Russki? Sophie Marceau is French,
Mia Kirshner is Canadian, and the other actors flaunt their native accents
like fans rooting for the home team. Nobody makes even the slightest attempt
to use a Russian accent, which gives "Anna Karenina" all the cultural charm
of a Japanese tourist trying to order a Whopper in a Moscow Burger.

King. Mr. Cranky

While
Tolstoy's Anna eventually becomes a selfish coquette who neglects
her illegitimate daughter and flirts with any man who crosses her path,
Rose's Anna spends her days alone in bed, crying herself to sleep.
Rose removes the daughter from the story, so that Anna won't have to appear
in the unsympathetic role of a bad mother.